- Director: Ari Aster
- Writer: Ari Aster
- Stars: Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor, Vilhelm Blomgren
- Run time: 2 Hours, 27 Minutes
- Amazon Link: https://amzn.to/35eWaIQ
Synopsis
Dani calls her parents late at night to check in. She’s worried because her sister sent some very disturbing emails. Dani doesn’t see, but we do, that the parents are lying in bed and very dead. Her sister has killed them in a murder/suicide. She calls her boyfriend, who blows it off as another of her sister’s “ploy for attention” games.
Dani worries that she’s being too needy and her boyfriend is getting ready to dump her. Meanwhile, Christian, the boyfriend, and his friends are talking about him actually leaving her. We soon see that the sister has arranged a very complicated and involved method of gassing the parents in their bedroom. They’re still very dead. Credits roll.
Some time passes, and Christian says he is going on a trip to Sweden with his college friends. They are going to an authentic hippy midsommar. Dani lays on a huge guilt trip, so Christian invites Dani to go along, assuming she won’t do it. None of his friends really like Dani, as she’s depressed and needy all the time. There’s a nine-day festival that Pelee’s, one of the guys, family is putting on.
The five of them go to Sweden the following summer; she’s still crying at the drop of a hat even months after the deaths. The minute they land, the drugs come out and get passed around. She gets some weird visions and passes out in the field.
The next morning, they head on to the festival. There is mention of a tick infestation, and everyone gets grossed out just talking about it. They are greeted by Pelle’s family and a bunch of locals. This commune looks very cult-like. It’s been 90 years since the last big feast, and it’ll be 90 more years until the next one. The nine-day feast will commence! An old woman yells, “Spirits! Back to the dead!”
Christian asks “What’s that building over there?” and is told that it’s a sort of temple and that no one is allowed inside. Christian forgets that today is Dani’s birthday; one more demonstration that he’s a bit of a pig. The breakfast meal is very ritualistic, structured, and weird as two old people chant and have a drink. Then they all go stare at a mountain for a long while until the old people are carried up there on chairs. The Americans watch all this, and they’re clearly getting bored. The old people cut their hands, rub blood into a sacred stone, and dive off the mountain to their deaths. The old woman pops like a watermelon at a Gallagher show, but the old man doesn’t quite die from the fall, so they beat his head in with a giant hammer, also just like a Gallagher show. Then they burn the bodies and pour the ashes on their ancestral tree.
We’re told “it’s a long, long-observed custom.” No one wants to die old and in pain. Of course, this ritual suicide triggers Dani’s memories, and she freaks out. Christian and Josh start arguing about doing their theses on this ritual.
Mark pees on the ancestral tree. Simon, one of the visitors from London is said to have left early, but no one saw him go, not even his fiancee, Connie, which is weird.
As Josh is allowed to read the holy book, we hear that these people’s oracles are all the result of inbreeding. Later, Connie goes missing as well. Supposedly, she met Simon at the train station. That night, Josh sneaks out while everyone is asleep. He goes back to the house where the holy book is kept, and he takes photos of the pages. Someone whacks him with the hammer as someone else there seems to be wearing Mark’s skin now. I assume whatever happened to Mark was in one of the cut scenes.
The town elders say one of their holy books is missing, and they want to know where Josh and Mark are. They really don’t seem to know what happened.
Then it’s time for the big dancing competition and Dani drinks some of their weird tea concoction. They dance until they fall; it’s a test of stamina. Meanwhile, Maja, one of the locals, has put a love spell on Christian, and he’s told that the commune has approved their mating. They need that outside blood once in a while.
The dancing continues, and Christian drinks the special tea as well. Dani eventually survives the dancing trial and becomes the May Queen. Dani goes off to bless the crops, and Christian stays behind to sow his oats with Maja with a bunch of witnesses. Dani finishes early and catches him in the act.
Christian soon finds out what happened to Josh, Simon, Mark, and the others. They knock him out.
The May Queen, Dani, has to choose the ninth offering to the group’s god. There were four outsiders, four from the family, and she must choose number nine. She chooses Christian, who is placed inside a hollowed-out bear carcass, awake and conscious, but drugged so much that he cannot move. All nine are placed in the special temple, which is then set on fire.
Dani finally smiles as she watches it all burn. The end.
Commentary
The scenery and settings are really bright and attractive. The constant, ongoing shots of people running and playing out in the field, consistently had me asking why they were doing these things other than to look idyllic and frollicky. Why were the old people upset about a missing book, when they knew darned well that they killed Josh, and that he hadn’t stolen it? Probably a red herring to make the remaining Americans think Josh ran off with it.
It’s very slow paced, and it’s more than an hour before the two old people die, the only really weird thing that happens until the very end. None of the characters are particularly likable. Christian is a pig, and Dani cries literally all the time, to the point of being mentally unstable.
It’s a very slow burn, and the ending was good, but far too brief for all the build up.